This is a hard post to start. On Friday night, September 16th, I noticed that my senior papillon, Kitsune, didn’t seem to be feeling well. He was walking a bit slow, with his head held down. I thought he had a stomach ache. He sometimes walks with his head down a bit when he feels nauseous/is going to throw up. That night we had eaten steak for dinner, and we gave the dogs a few plain pieces. I thought that maybe the steak didn’t agree with him.
He didn’t seem to feel too horrible though. He was still happily taking treats, and laid down in his bed to go to sleep for the night. I figured he was feeling better and everything would be normal in the morning. That night, between 4 and 5 am, Kit woke me up. I took him outside and immediately noticed that something was wrong.
Kit was in pain. He was walking slowly with his back slightly arched. I brought him inside, put him in his crate, and called the emergency vet. When I called, they told me that the vet was in an emergency surgery, with a long que of patients. The wait was going to be 4+ hours long. Kit’s regular vet, thankfully, had hours that Saturday and they take emergency cases during normal business hours. Longer story slightly shorter, we got Kit in for an emergency appointment with his regular vet when they opened at 9am on Saturday, Sept. 17th.
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Saturday, Sept. 17th
After an exam, Kit was diagnosed with cervical IVDD. Although he was in a lot of pain, Kit had no signs of neurological impairment. His vet said that cervical (neck) IVDD can be the most painful because, when you think about it, there is almost no movement that a dog makes that doesn’t also cause some degree of neck movement. Kit was prescribed three meds, a steroid (Prednisone), a pain killer (Gabapentin), and a muscle relaxer (methocarbamol). Kit is also on very strict crate rest. It normally takes at least 6 to 8 weeks for IVDD to heal, and too much movement during this time can cause setbacks.
After getting Kitsune home on Saturday, and getting his first dose of meds into him, he seemed to quickly be in a lot less pain.
Sunday, Sept. 18th
Sunday was pretty uneventful. Kit slept a lot, but was feeling a lot better with his meds on board. I was extra careful to keep him crated and quiet on Sunday, because his regular vet was closed. I really didn’t want to have to deal with a visit to the further away emergency vet if I didn’t have too. When Kit was an hour or two away from his next scheduled dose of meds, I noticed his pain started to return. It wasn’t as bad as it got on Saturday, but he was clearly getting sore before he was due for his next round of meds. Thankfully, it only seems to take 20 – 30 minutes for his meds to kick in once I give them to him, so he wasn’t in pain long.
Monday, Sept. 19th
Monday AM I had a phone conference with Kit’s vet. We upped his pain meds from every 12 hours to every 8 hours.
Tuesday, Sept. 20th
Kit did better on Tuesday after we upped his pain meds. He’s having much less breakthrough pain. Tuesday night when I moved him from his downstairs crate to his upstairs crate so we could all go to bed, he was whining a lot. He didn’t want to be in the crate. Whining in his crate is pretty normal behavior for Kit, and something we haven’t heard him do the first 3 days of being crated. Although it was stressful, I’m hoping it’s a small sign that he’s feeling a bit more like himself. Although it does make me worry about how 8 weeks of crate rest is going to go if he’s already protesting!
Wednesday, Sept. 21st
Wednesday was hard, not because Kit was feeling any worse. Quite the opposite, with his new schedule of pain meds I can tell he’s been feeling a lot better. But, no matter how good he feels, he needs to stay calm for weeks yet to give his disc enough time to heal. Keeping Kit calm/quiet today was hard. He didn’t want to be in his crate and would whine and scratch at the door asking to come out. It was stressing me out, because I was afraid he’d hurt himself by scratching at the crate.
His new med schedule was also a bit of a struggle. I need to give him various meds now at 8am, 10am, 4pm, 10pm, and 12am! The 12am dose is the hardest, because I’ve been so exhausted and just want to go to bed! I’ve noticed that besides being more vocal, Kit has also been bending his head down to sniff the ground during potty breaks, and scratching at the ground after using the bathroom. These are all little things that he couldn’t/wouldn’t do at the beginning of the week.
Thursday, Sept. 22nd
Thursday was okay! After the rough day we had Wednesday, Thursday felt easy in comparison. I had to stop by the vet to pick up Kit’s prescription refills. He was good for most of the day, and not as restless in his crate as he was yesterday. The only time he really wanted out was when I was cooking/eating dinner. He’s been eating a lot more enthusiastically and begging for food a bit. Kit LOVES food, so seeing him get a bit more back to his normal self feels good. He even barked at me while I was cooking, which was the first time I heard him bark since before all this started.
Friday, Sept. 23rd
On Friday night, I gave Kit his last dose of methocarbamol (the muscle relaxer). I have to admit, that while I think this med has been helping him to relax and sleep, I’m glad to be done with it. I can tell it’s been making Kit somewhat lethargic, and uncoordinated. These can be normal side effects for this medication. I’ve been giving the methocarbamol to Kit right before bed, so he sleeps off most of the side effects.
By the mornings the worst of the side effects are gone, but I can tell he’s not 100% himself while on this med. It’s a bit frustrating that a med used to help with IVDD causes incoordination. It makes me worry every morning that it’s his IVDD getting worse, even though I know in my head that it’s just his meds. As the day progresses, and the methocarbamol wears off, he starts acting a lot more like himself.
Friday night, around dinner time again, Kit was getting really restless. I let him out for a few minutes, under strict supervision. He’s doing a lot better but, at the same time, I can tell he’s still a bit uncomfortable. Today he wanted to jump up onto one of our chairs in the living room, which of course I didn’t let him do! But a few times I caught him sitting down somewhat awkwardly and I could tell that he was still feeling a bit sore/stiff. A far cry from how he was feeling on Saturday morning, though! So I feel like we are still making progress, a little bit each day.
The next couple of days, without dealing with the side effects of the methocarbamol, are going to be telling about how Kit is really feeling. He’ll remain on his other two meds (Prednisone and Gabapentin) for now. We have a vet appointment scheduled for Wednesday to go over how he’s doing, and to discuss what we’re going to do for his meds going forward. I’m also going to spend some time today researching/thinking about what we want to do as far as a more permanent solution for keeping Kit off the stairs, and perhaps look more into ramps that we can use for him to be able to access the furniture once his crate rest is up.
More Next Week…
I feel like this post is getting really long, so I’m going to end it here. I’ll do a similar post next week. I’m not sure how useful these posts will be to other people, but I know for my own records I like to have stuff like this written down. Fingers crossed that we’ll never have to deal with an IVDD flare again! But, if we do, I know it will be useful for me to go back and look at this timeline of Kit’s recovery. Maybe it could be helpful to other owners who are going through IVDD and wanting to know more about what to expect day to day?
For more up to date updates on Kit, you can follow us on his Instagram page, or Facebook. I’m planning on posting these weekly updates here for at least the 8 weeks of Kit’s recovery, but I’ve been posting shorter, more frequent updates on our social media pages. Thank you SO much to everyone who has sent Kit well wishes this past week. We really appreciate everyone’s kindness. Hopefully I’ll have nothing but good news about his recovery going forward!
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